Joshua 21 explained: Towns for the Priestly Tribe

The Levites ask (vv. 1-3)

Levi was the tribe set apart for religious work, so it got no block of territory; Moses had ordered that the other tribes give it towns with grazing land around them. The Levite leaders come to Shiloh, where the worship tent stood, to claim this, and the tribes give the towns out of their own shares.

Drawing lots by family (vv. 4-8)

Levi had three family branches, Kohath, Gershon and Merari, and lots were drawn to decide which region each would live in, a way of leaving the choice to God. Aaron's descendants, the priests who served at the altar, came from Kohath and were given their own group of thirteen towns.

The priests' towns (vv. 9-19)

The priests' towns lie in the south, in Judah, Simeon and Benjamin, close to where Jerusalem would later become the center of worship. Hebron goes to the priests, but its outlying fields stay with Caleb, who had been promised them earlier; Anathoth on this list was later the hometown of the prophet Jeremiah.

Levites in every region (vv. 20-40)

The other Levite families receive towns scattered across every tribe on both sides of the Jordan River, so likely no area was far from people trained in Israel's law and worship. Several of these towns are marked as cities of refuge, places where someone who had killed a person could shelter from relatives seeking revenge until their case was heard.

Forty-eight towns in all (vv. 41-42)

The total matches what Moses had commanded, and each town came with pasture for animals around its walls. Unlike other towns, they had no outlying villages or farms, since the Levites were meant to live largely on the people's offerings.

Every promise kept (vv. 43-45)

This closes the whole account of dividing the land with a sweeping claim that God kept every promise and gave Israel peace from the enemies it had fought in the wars of conquest. It sits in tension with earlier notes that some peoples were never driven out (Gezer, listed here, is one), so many scholars read it as a big picture statement of faith rather than a detailed report.

Key verse: Joshua 21:45

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the 'rest' in verses 43 to 45 was a complete fulfillment in Joshua's day or, as the New Testament letter to the Hebrews suggests, a partial one pointing ahead to a deeper rest still to come.

Something to think about

When a promise is kept in its broad strokes but not in every detail, is it still fair to call it kept?